Chapter 258 - A Tasteless Commercial Movie

I don't know how long it took, but when the airplane was passing through a layer of airflow, the fuselage appeared to shake slightly, and both Lin Mingyang and Megan were woken up at the same time. Sleepy-eyed Megan looked at Lin Mingyang in confusion, while Lin Mingyang didn't know what was going on at first, he picked up the phone hanging above his bed and asked a few questions, after clarifying the situation he turned his head and smiled faintly at Megan.

"The airplane just passed through an airflow layer, what just happened is normal!"

Putting her heart down Megan quickly fell asleep again, while Lin Ming Yang was sleepy, he walked out of the bedroom in his robe and then waved at an aircrew member who was standing not far away.

"Sir, is there anything I can you service?"

"I'd like a cup of coffee, after it's made, please send it to the conference room for me, thank you!"

Lin Mingyang didn't change his clothes and went directly to the conference room, because he had an appointment to talk to Eckles today, and it just so happened that the airplane's conference room was equipped with a very high-end instant messaging device, and after a short connection, Lin Mingyang started his "face-to-face" conversation with Eckles through the convenient TV and telephone terminals.

On the computer to see Lin Mingyang sleeping robe, a half-awake look, Eckers basically can be sure that he is and some woman "fooling around".

"I just watched Michael Bay's shooting program, you should have a copy of that in your hands as well." Ecks raised a folder in his hand, Lin Ming Yang was drinking coffee at the other end, just casually glancing towards the screen, then nodded.

"I've seen this program as well, do you see any problems with it?"

"200 million dollars for filming, are we making a new Titanic here?" Ecks moved his body towards the front of the camera, if he was facing a real person, Lin Ming Yang estimated that the other party's spit foam would be able to spray directly onto his face.

"As a commercial movie, what do you think we can expect from this movie other than attracting the audience in terms of special effects?" Lin Ming Yang put down the coffee in his hand and looked meaningfully at Ecks on the big screen.

Ecks fell silent for a while, in fact he was only complaining for a few moments, and didn't really have any thoughts of wanting to cut the filming budget of this movie.

"Judging from the program he proposed, the plot structure and even characterization in Transformers 1 has been improved, but focusing too much on special effects can easily break the original balance of the film, and a single advantage can easily trigger sensory fatigue, especially visual fatigue, and that's what I'm really worried about!"

When Ecks said this, Lin Ming Yang also realized the seriousness of this problem.

"Can you be more specific?"

"The most direct manifestation is that there are too many Transformers!" Ecks held a thick iteration of design plans, "Increasing the number of Transformers can indeed make the movie more commercially watchable, but the problem lies in the fact that more is also a bit too much right now, and some of them can be completely deleted in a limited amount of time and then balanced out to something else. The few Transformers that appeared in the last episode gave me a dizzying feeling, and this time it's just a bit of a wobble, not to mention all the gray tones of the Decepticons series, I'm even confused at times when I look at Starscream and Megatron this time around, not to mention a dozen other Dragon Characters that come in randomly, take the final desert melee scene for example, I'm willing to bet that this scene would be a mess if it was filmed. I'll bet this scene will be a mess, and the audience can basically ignore the Transformers' images to see the gunfire and explosions... The purpose of my proposal to cut the filming budget is not to save money, but to remind Michael Bay to take the issue seriously, and not to end up overdoing it!"

Lin Ming Yang clasped his hands and sulked, Ecks continued, "I think the success of the last part of the movie was really in the special effects, Michael Bay got so many new Transformers out at once, I know that he was also thinking of surpassing the previous one, but wasn't his idea a bit too eager...I think it's very necessary for you to have a serious talk with him on this issue.... Have a serious talk with him on this issue!"

Ecks started from the technical level, and what he said did make sense, but Lin Ming Yang was obviously thinking a bit deeper: "Compared to this problem you just mentioned, I'm actually more worried about the increasingly thick American mainstream ideology reflected in the movie, and that the entire series of films is becoming more and more like a recruitment advertisement for the U.S. military."

In peacetime, movies play a very huge role in ideological construction and national image propaganda. In the script of Transformers 2, the shot of the aircraft carrier Roosevelt being broken in half by the Decepticon leader, Fallen King Kong, gave Lin Mingyang's movie the false impression of reflecting on the role of the U.S. war machine.

But as the plot progresses, he soon realizes that this is Hollywood's usual technique of "to rise and fall first": the U.S. aircraft carrier, which has never been sunk since World War II, encounters an unprecedentedly powerful foe, but the enemy provokes a larger U.S. counterattack, with the Americans and the Autobots fighting against the same enemy, and in the end, of course, it's the Stars and Stripes that triumphs, and Sam and Optimus Prime are standing on the deck of a brand-new aircraft carrier to summarize the central idea.

This makes Lin Mingyang more or less disappointed in his feelings, although the story content of Transformers is boring and horribly clichéd, but as a historical and cultural product, Lin Mingyang is sober enough to know that Transformers is attached to something far more complex than its mere consumers.

In 1984, the United States launched its Star Wars program, and the Cold War between the two hostile camps came to a climax. That same year, Transformers premiered. This seemingly innocent cartoon coalesced the colloquial American imagination of the Cold War at the time, reflecting the prevailing ideology of the time.

Lin Mingyang teased with a sarcastic tone, "On one side is a camp of civilian robots, with justice and peace as their goals and ideals; on the other is a camp of military robots, with a leader who has a perpetual perverted obsession with power and violence. With the two camps fighting from outer space to earth, fighting to the death, there is probably no better way to vividly summarize the American worldview during the Cold War."

"That would get a lot of support from the U.S. military, which should be good for filming." Ecks wracked his brain and could only come up with such a reason that was more like self-congratulation.

"When it comes to consumers outside the US, it's a gross injustice!"

Hollywood blockbusters have been big in the world for so many years that most viewers are actually quite used to Americans - more specifically, white middle-class American males with a bit of a rebellious temperament and always with no shortage of beautiful women to favor - saving the planet time and time again in Hollywood movies. What used to be a display of individual heroism has evolved into a show of American military might in Transformers.

The reason the hero isn't as heroic as in a normal Hollywood movie is because standing behind him is almost the entire American war machine. Michael Bay in the plan to list out those weapons list, clear the U.S. military's main battle equipment: M1A2 tanks, F-16 fighter, F-22 fighter-bomber, SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, B-1 bomber, C -17 transport aircraft, the aircraft carrier Roosevelt, the destroyer Kidd, plus submarines in the water and satellites in outer space, this movie is like a non-nuclear, biological and chemical conditions of the U.S. military can carry out a local war The movie looks like a preview of a local war that the US military could fight under non-nuclear, biological and chemical conditions.

In the past, even if it is a commercial movie, Lin Mingyang will make some changes to the script, but this time he did not even change the desire, in his eyes, this movie has been completely reduced to commercial interests and shooting goods.